Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Define Money Bill with constitutional provisions.
• Mention the criterion to designate a Bill as a Money Bill.
• Mention the differences between Money Bills and Financial Bills.

Introduction

Article 110 of the Constitution deals with the Money Bills. It states that a bill is deemed to be a money bill if it contains ‘only’ provisions dealing with all or any of the following matters:

• The imposition, abolition, remission, alteration or regulation of any tax;
• The regulation of the borrowing of money by the Union government;
• The custody of the Consolidated Fund of India or the contingency fund of India, the payment of moneys into or the withdrawal of money from any such fund;
• The appropriation of money out of the Consolidated Fund of India;
• Declaration of any expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India or increasing the amount of any such expenditure;
• The receipt of money on account of the Consolidated Fund of India or the public account of India or the custody or issue of such money, or the audit of the accounts of the Union or of a state; or
• Any matter incidental to any of the matters specified above.

Body

Financial bills deal with fiscal matters, that is, revenue or expenditure.

Financial bills are of three kinds:

• 1. Money bills—Article 110
• 2. Financial bills (I)—Article 117 (1)
• 3. Financial bills (II)—Article 117 (3)

However, only those financial bills are money bills which contain exclusively those matters which are mentioned in Article 110 of the constitution. Following are the key differences between Money Bills and Financial Bills.